By the Marxist-Leninist Communist Party of Venezuela (PCMLV).

We Venezuelan Marxist-Leninists are working to consolidate our Party and its organizations, to increase our participation in politics and to expand our influence among the masses. For these tasks we value the experiences of the various organizations at the national and international level, especially the guidance of the classics, the Communist International and the ICMLPO. At this stage, we need to continue activities that allow the revival and expansion of political work in various arenas: local, sectoral, territorial, national and international, in order to bring the Marxist-Leninist program to the exploited. We must overcome our weaknesses, the negative consequences of the pandemic and the deep global economic crisis, which have had stronger impacts in our country than in others in the region, due to the strong aggression of the imperialist bloc of the US and EU, and the weaknesses of social democracy.

Recently we have focused on reviving our own activity and our relations with other revolutionary groups through the Party and its mass organizations, advancing the unification of the Marxist-Leninists of Venezuela. We must do this in a way that differs ideologically and politically, from the opposition to the Bolivarian process and rapprochement with the pro-imperialist right carried out by Bandera Roja and the PCV (Communist Party of Venezuela), as well as the policy of unconditional support by some organizations that considered themselves Marxist as a tendency submerging themselves within the PSUV (United Socialist Party of Venezuela) and losing their ideological independence and their own organizational capacity.

The policy of critical support with demands has been gaining forces and expanding its influence in Venezuelan society in the face of a confusing reality in which many sectors have been left without a reference point and must be found in one of these three options for the development of political action.

It is important to understand that in the midst of the crisis of capitalism, which threatens a depression, with profound changes at the international level, and great manipulation of information, confusion can be created. This is an expression of the accelerated sharpening of the fundamental contradictions; in the face of this reality, our Party has proposed an option that focuses on resistance and struggle against imperialist aggression. We apply the ideas of the common enemy and main danger as defined by Stalin, supporting the policy of national sovereignty posed by the Bolivarian process in its development in the face of Yankee imperialism, while making criticisms and demands for the vacillating position of the government in some of its actions. This internal struggle of petty-bourgeois tendencies cannot create a unified strategy of construction and advances between reforms and counter-reforms, adapting to whatever is coming in order to survive. However, it still respects democratic freedoms and popular organizations, which allows revolutionaries to continue educating and organizing the masses without open repression.

For us, the critique of this ambiguity characteristic of social democracy cannot focus on one person but on politics and its class character. We promote among the truly revolutionary organizations the need to join forces to try to advance in the next stages, consolidating their own references, without making concessions to imperialism or the local bourgeoisie. We seek to instill among the masses the conception of popular democracy and socialism.

The demands for improvement in the living conditions of the popular majority, wage increases and indexation to inflation, as well as the proposal of a worker, peasant and communal government, have allowed the agreement with other sectors and an advance of these proposals.

Internal challenges

In the process of accumulation of forces we started with the holding of our fifth Congress in 2022 and the redistribution of cadres to promote the revival, after a pandemic and economic crisis that left negative consequences.

One of the greatest challenges of the stage is to consolidate our influence as Venezuelan Marxist-Leninists in other sectors of the masses. Thus we have been expanding the policy of the Popular Front and the United Front of the proletariat with several organizations in various regions, which seek to converge in a unifying effort at the national level.

From the programmatic point of view, the proposal of a Worker, Peasant and Communal government, based on territorial work and broader mass organizations, has allowed us to coordinate with other social sectors, having reference points of struggle and popular mobilization on the basis of the idea of building revolutionary popular power and a form of government of its own.

In this action we are working with mass organizations that can add to the work among women, intellectuals, artists, athletes, militia members, young people, older adults, and ethnic groups, with a theoretical and practical anti-imperialist and class base. We are using tactical and strategic approaches in order to contribute to the deepening of the processes of training, organization and mobilization. This must be sustained, on the one hand, by the study and application of Marxist-Leninist science and the contributions of the classics to Marxist political economy, and on the other hand, in the struggle for the improvement of the living conditions of the majority through the demand for wage increases and indexation and improvement of living conditions, promoting popular organization and mobilization on a revolutionary basis.

Towards the meeting of the Venezuelan Marxist-Leninists

To continue advancing in the positioning of Marxist-Leninist politics we must study the conditions in today’s agitated world and not be trapped in sectarianism, or localism, contemplating at our navel. This forces us to make an important effort to achieve the understanding of what the work for the unification of revolutionary struggles on an ideological basis means. This is why we convened the First Meeting of Venezuelan Marxist-Leninists in March, with the participation of our members and activists from various regions and organizations that define themselves as Marxist-Leninists. We were able to join in the work for a broader and more widespread reference point, in order to improve the national influence of Marxist-Leninists.

The reasons for promoting the Meeting of Venezuelan Marxist-Leninists can be explained from the most elementary — the defense against a common enemy or threat, and the participation in daily activities of the masses — to the identity of class objectives in pursuit of the building of a new society, or the ideological base, in struggle against other views that claim to be communist, with a history of inconsistencies. All this requires continuing to work on the program, common tactics and strategy that can find the route for joint advancement.

Where are we going?

In that meeting for the Unity of Venezuelan Marxist-Leninists, we opened the doors to the possibility of new activities that would allow us to join forces and build a reference point for those of us who define ourselves as Marxist-Leninists, with profound differences with Bandera Roja that has just expressed support for the imperialist agent Guaidó and the PCV that it has gone into opposition behind the traditional union opposition and the most degenerate Trotskyism, fighting with the government for electoral votes. This necessitates a clarification to demarcate from these positions, also making it clear that we consider that the State institutions must respect the decisions of these organizations, even if they are incorrect, because they represent the opportunist essence of them.

The Meeting of Venezuelan Marxist-Leninists is a space for gathering together to develop activities in a coordinated manner. It aims to provide the exploited of our country and the world with a point of reference that allows for overcoming the levels of confusion and dispersion that the revolutionary left is experiencing thanks to the deviations and campaigns that reformism, revisionism and social democracy, and even the agents of imperialism, have unleashed. They do this in order to confuse, discredit and weaken the international communist movement in relation to what is happening in Venezuela.

We agree that for revolutionaries, especially for us, it is vital to evaluate the responses to concrete events. Thus, when evaluating events such as February 27-28, 1989, or the participation of BR and the PCV for years in the history of Venezuela, we can only say that they marked the bankruptcy of that left. This was mainly because, in the face of a convulsive reality, there were no organizational or political conditions to place themselves at the head of some masses, who had expectations about that supposed vanguard that claimed to be determined to fight.

These organizations, which at that time were not able to guide the people in their struggle, today continue to call themselves Marxist-Leninists. They turn their backs on the needs of the political moment, passing in a convulsive and visceral way from the surrender to projects as conservative as the opportunism of Caldera, to the opposition to a democratic process that is confronted with a dangerous aggression of the most violent imperialist country on the planet.

These turns and inconsistent political expressions bring confusion to the popular majority and the international communist movement. They call into question the strategic and tactical solidity of those organizations that pass from one side of politics to the other with an ease and passion. This is in addition to attacking the unity of the people, destroying the possibilities of unity of the vanguard in the camp of the left, leading them to pragmatic alliances with the right, as Bandera Roja has just done and the PCV could follow.

In order to try to overcome these weaknesses, which show a lack of understanding of the political moment, of the approaches of Marxism-Leninism and a lack of spirit of unity with the people and other revolutionary forces, we have decided to travel, together with other cadres and organizations, the path of building a broad possibility, of a United Front type, and to take up the baton abandoned by the traditional “communist” organizations; to try to give a new impetus to the ideas that can allow, going forward, to building socialism, based on the history of struggle of the proletariat, taking as references scientific socialism, the Paris commune, the Communist International — the revolutionary struggles that have been waged throughout the world.

Socialism can only be built with the workers-peasants’ alliance in power and the people in arms.

Categories: Imperialism, International, Venezuela